I would like to flip it into a long term rental, marketing it to horse people and hopefully higher quality tenants.  

If it hadn't have been, I'd probably be the rocker horse or something.

I am in the same field, and I got into real estate and think it works fairly well with education (if your job has some flexibility like mine)...I can recall spending like a hundred grueling hours fighting over half someone's deposit in the legal aid office and stalling the eviction an extra week or two on  technicalities (a noble cause for sure), but they still, of course, were evicted eventually with no money.

The bankruptcy could potentially stall your being able to foreclose or recover your investment for a good deal of time though.QUESTION: Do I run any risk of losing part or all of my investment?

all of the obvious prime investment opportunities are going to be gone"This is complete horse crap.

BP is a great resource obviously, but also tap that knowledge that your family members have.How you structure is ultimately important, but its putting the cart before the horse.

Too many times I see people ignore the Fair Housing Act and only look to the ADA guidance.So where the ADA says the animal must be a dog (with a narrow exception for miniature horses) - under FHA the tenant would be allowed to have a reasonable accommodation for animals other than a dog (e.g., Cat).Here are a few good resources on service animals in housing:https://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/documents/huddoc?...

It's a 4 bed, 2 bath, 2 stall garage with a 36x24ft pole barn on 4.8 acres.

I can stall a little bit but Fannie Mae doesn't care about my problems.

A good horse with a good jockey is still what you're looking for.